In January of 1983, I became city editor for a small newspaper with a decentralized staff. Reporters worked from offices in the county seats, rarely coming to the main office.

They sent their day’s news budget by computer. Later, after the stories came in, we conferred by telephone as I edited copy as deadlines loomed.

It was, by today’s technology standards, a clumsy system, but it worked. We got the paper out on time most nights, and we delivered a good product to readers.

Since then, I’ve taken courses in online education and taught online, but that initial job working together with people to produce a product remains the defining experience of my online education: It taught me the potential of computer connections for collaborations across geographic boundaries.

2 responses to “Milestones in my online education”

My defining moment occurred ten years ago when I wrote and offered my own online classes for the Greater Capital Region Teacher Center. I had taken an online course prior, and based on that experience, decided to add a face to face session at the start and end of the class. The topic was brain research, and the face to face sessions personalized the entire experience for me and my students.

I can remember using F2F sessions to begin and end classes back when we were starting distance learning classes. As teachers and students got used to the environment and we began teaching more widely dispersed classes, we quit doing F2F. Now I’m not sure I’d require it even if students were geographically clustered.